away from me. I’ve already published my findings on the nets. Maybe that’s it. Maybe they’re pissed off because I didn’t send my findings through the regular academic channels to be refereed before putting them out for all the world to see.
McFergusen ostentatiously pressed the keypad on the board built into the head of the table. “I hereby call this meeting to order. It is being recorded, as is the usual practice.”
Molina cleared his throat and spoke up. “I wish to submit my findings as proof that evidence of biological activity has been discovered on Mercury.”
McFergusen nodded. “Your evidence is entered into the record of this meeting.”
“Good.”
“Any comments?”
A plump, grandmotherly woman with graying hair neatly pulled back off her roundish face spoke up. “I have a comment.”
“Dr. Paula Kantrowitz,” said McFergusen, for the benefit of the recording. “Geobiologist, Cornell University.”
You’re overdue for a regeneration treatment, Molina sneered silently at Dr. Kantrowitz. And a month or two in an exercise center.
She tapped at the keypad before her and Molina’s data sprang up on the wall screens on both sides of the room.
“The evidence that Dr. Molina has found is incontrovertible,” she said. “It clearly shows a range of signatures that are indicative of biological activity.”
Molina felt his entire body relax. Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all, he thought.
“There is no question that the rocks Dr. Molina tested bear high levels of biomarkers.”
A few nods around the table.
“The question is,” Kantrowitz went on, “did those rocks originate on Mercury?”
“What do you mean?” Molina snapped.
Avoiding his suddenly angry eyes, Kantrowitz went on, “When I tested the rock samples that Dr. Molina so kindly lent to us, I was bothered by the results I saw. They reminded me of something I had seen elsewhere.”
“And what is that?” McFergusen asked, like the straight man in a well-rehearsed routine.
Kantrowitz touched another keypad and a new set of data curves sprang up on the wall screens alongside Molina’s data. They looked so similar they were almost identical.
“This second data set is from Mars,” she said. “Dr. Molina’s rocks bear biomarkers that are indistinguishable from the Martian samples.”
“What of it?” Molina challenged. “So the earliest biological activity on Mercury produces signatures similar to the earliest biological activity on Mars. That in itself is an important discovery.”
“It would be,” Kantrowitz replied, still not looking at Molina, “if your samples actually came from Mercury.”
“Actually came from Mercury?” Molina was too stunned to be angry. “What do you mean?”
Kantrowitz looked sad, as if disappointed with the behavior of a child.
“Once I realized the similarity to Martian rocks, I tested the morphology of Dr. Molina’s samples.”
The data sets on the walls winked off, replaced by a new set of curves.
“The upper curves, in red, are from well-established data on Martian rocks. The lower curves, in yellow, are from Dr. Molina’s samples. As you can see, they are so parallel as to be virtually identical.”
Molina stared at the wall screen. No, he said to himself. Something is wrong here.
“The third set of curves, in red at the bottom, is from random samples of rocks I personally picked up from the surface of Mercury. They are very different in mineral content and in isotope ratios from the acknowledged Martian rocks. And from Dr. Molina’s samples.”
Molina sagged back in his chair, speechless.
Relentlessly, Kantrowitz went on, “I then used the tunneling microscope to search for inclusions in the samples.”
Another graph appeared on the wall screen.
“I found several, which held gasses trapped within the rock. The ratio of noble gases in the inclusions match the composition of the Martian atmosphere, down to the limits of the measurement capabilities. If these samples had been on the surface of Mercury for any reasonable length of time, the gases would have been baked out of the rock by the planet’s high daytime temperatures.”
“Are you saying,” McFergusen asked, “that Dr. Molina’s samples are actually rocks from Mars?”
“They’re not from Mercury at all?” Danvers asked, unable to hide a delighted smile.
“That’s right,” Kantrowitz replied, nodding somberly. At last she turned to look directly at Molina. “I’m very sorry, Dr. Molina, but your samples are Martian in origin.”
“But I found them here,” Molina said, his voice a timid whine. “On Mercury.”
McFergusen said coolly, “That raises the question of how they got to Mercury.”
A deadly silence fell across the conference table. After several moments, one of the younger men sitting across from Kantrowitz, raised his hand. An Asian of some sort, Molina saw. Or perhaps an Asian-American.
“Dr. Abel Lee,” pronounced McFergusen. “Astronomy department, Melbourne University.”
Lee got to his feet. Molina was surprised to see that he was quite tall. “It’s well known that some meteorites found on Earth originated from Mars. They were blasted off the planet by the impact of a much more energetic meteor, achieved escape velocity, and wandered through interplanetary space until they fell into Earth’s gravity well.”
“In fact,” McFergusen added, “the first evidence that life existed on Mars was found in a meteorite that had landed in Antarctica—although the evidence was hotly debated for many years.”
Lee made a little bow toward the professor, then continued, “So it is possible that a rock that originated on or even beneath the surface of Mars can be blasted free of the planet and eventually impact on another planet.”
Molina nodded vigorously.
“But is it likely that such a rock would land on Mercury?” asked one of the other scientists. “After all, Mercury’s gravity well is considerably smaller than Earth’s.”
“And with its being so close to the Sun,” said another, “wouldn’t the chances be overwhelming that the rock would fall into the Sun, instead?”
Lee replied, “I’d have to do the statistics, but I think both points are valid. The chances of a Martian rock landing on Mercury are vanishingly small, I would think.”
“There’s more to it than that,” said McFergusen, his bearded face looking grim.
Molina felt as if he were the accused at a trial being run by Torquemada.
“First,” said McFergusen, raising a long callused finger, “Dr. Molina did not find merely one Martian rock, but a total of eight, all at the same site.”
“It might have been a single meteor that broke up when it hit the ground,” Molina said.
McFergusen’s frown showed what he thought of that possibility. “Second,” he went on, “is the fact that although we have searched an admittedly small area of the planet’s surface, no other such samples have been found.”
“But you’ve only scratched the surface of the problem!” Molina cried, feeling more and more desperate.
McFergusen nodded like a judge about to pronounce a death sentence. “I agree that we have searched only a small fraction of the planet’s surface. Still…” he sighed, then, staring squarely down the table at Molina, he went on, “There is such a thing as Occam’s razor. When faced with several possible answers to a question, the simplest answer is generally the correct one.”
“What do you mean?” Molina whispered, although he knew what the answer would be.
“The simplest answer,” McFergusen said, his voice a low deadly rumble, “is that the site at which you discovered those rocks was deliberately seeded with samples brought to that location from Mars.”
“No!” Molina shouted. “That’s not true!”
“You worked on Mars, did you not?”
“Four years ago!”
“You had ample opportunity to collect rocks from Mars and eventually bring them to Mercury.”
